The silence of the night was interrupted by the phone ringing, which never happened. Lucy was instantly awake and when her senses came to her and she realized what woke her up, she counted the rings and realized the phone call was for her family. She asked Earl to go to the phone, because she felt a middle of the night call might be important. Earl answered, amid a cacophony of ‘hello’s’ from other party liners.

  “It’s three in the mornin, what is this all about?” Frank Hardie said.

  “Hello. Who’s there?” Julie Jennings said.

  “Hello, is everyone ok?” Reverend Smith asked.

  “Who’s callin, I recognized the rings as belongin to us,” Earl said.

  “Oh hey Earl. This is Mildred, Clement’s mom. I needed to talk with you.” Mildred said.

  “Are you and Clement ok, Mildred?” Reverend Smith asked.

  “We are fine, Reverend; you can go back to bed and get yore rest,” Mildred said.

  “What’s this all about, Mildred? Why are you wakin everybody up in the middle of the night? Is there some kind of emergency?” nosy Margie asked.

  “No, Margie,” Mildred said, “I just had to tell the Higgins something. Go on back to bed.”

  Earl said, “You can go back to bed, too, Julie and Frank. We got this covered.”

  After a bunch of clicks from sleepy party liners hangin up, Mildred said, “Earl, we got a visit last night from someone we both know. We are fine, but I think you might want to tidy up before daylight.”

  Earl said, “Well, I thank you for yore warnin, Mildred. That’s mighty useful. And I hope you get a good rest. Good night.”

  “Good night Earl,” Mildred said as she and Earl hung up.

  Lucy fixed Earl a pot of coffee and he thought about the course of action as he drank a cup of Joe.

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  He realized Mildred was warnin him about the revenooers heading his way and he had his equipment stashed in the bed of the wagon. That would be one of the first places they would look. What to do? Earl talked over with Lucy a couple of different options and headed out the door. Rather than wake up the horses and hitch them up to the wagon in the darkness, he woke up all of his boys and had them follow him out to the wagon. With the extra help, they made short work of movin all of the equipment. They moved everything out of the spring house, put the still equipment in the back and started disguisin it putin all of the spring house storage around it and on top of it to where you couldn’t see any of the still at all! Of course it was pitch black, bein night, but Earl knew nothin would be visible in the daytime, as well.

  As they walked back to the house, Earl said, with a big yawn, “I’m shore glad we ain’t got no snow yet so our tracks don’t show up come daytime. Well, let’s get back to bed and try to get some sleep, boys. Good night.”

  When mornin came and they realized they hadn’t had any middle of the night visitors, Earl and Lucy let out a sigh of relief. However, durin breakfast, there was a knock at the door. Sure enough, it was the revenooers, askin if they could have a look-see around the property. “Well you sure must’ve taken a liken to our property, Steve, cause you just looked over our place last month! Sure, knock yourself out. Look where you want to. Would you guys care fur a cup of coffee, before you get started?” Earl said.

  The officers took him up on the coffee. Lucy set out some of her good ol zucchini bread and home churned butter. The kids all came to the table too and by the time the bread was gone, Lucy had set out some hickory smoked bacon and scrambled eggs with cheese. “I could use some more of that delicious coffee, if you don’t mind ma’am,” Steve said and everyone agreed. After breakfast, with a thin light of the sun shining through the trees, the search fur the still began.

  Steve Cordoba said, “They have the sweetest spring water here, so cold! I think we should look around the spring first. That would make the most sense,” And Steve headed toward the spring.

  Bert Wintergreen said, “I doubt we will find any equipment since his still blew up. He is a small time operator and it would be surprising to find anything more around here. But, we will look anyway.”

  The men got to the door of the spring house and opened it. They no longer needed the flashlight, since the sun had come up and they were able to see what was in the spring house. Steve pushed aside the butter churn and saw three crates of empty milk bottles stacked up. Bert had looked in the other corner of the little house and seen a milking stool, and racks fur the cheese. He said, “ there ain’t nuthin here, Steve. Let’s look in back of the chicken coop.”

  They checked the back of the coop, all around the house and the barn. Then it was time to look in the plowed under corn field. After satisfying their curiosity, the men left and Earl and Lucy let out the breath they had been holdin. “It shore wuz a good thing you and the boys got that stuff put away, Earl. Next time we see Mildred, I need to take her a cake and thank her!”